1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a hands-free system for managing access to terminal memory data transferred from a mobile terminal and stored, a navigation system, and a terminal memory data management method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephone directory data on a telephone directory, which are stored in a mobile telephone carried by a user, a personal handyphone system (PHS) in Japan (hereinafter referred to simply as a mobile telephone), or the like, may be transferred to a vehicular information terminal such as a navigation device or the like. For example, the mobile telephone and the vehicular information terminal may be connected to each other with or without a wire, and the telephone directory may be transferred when the user operates the mobile telephone. After the telephone directory is transferred, when the user displays the telephone directory stored in the vehicular information terminal and selects a person or company to call (a telephone number), the person or company can be called via the mobile telephone through, for example, a hands-free function.
For example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-266755 (JP-A-2007-266755), there is disclosed a transmission control device that has stored in telephone directory data each telephone number and each mobile telephone to be used in association with each other and thereby determines that one of a plurality of mobile telephones which is to be used to make a call in accordance with a telephone number of a transmission destination when the plurality of the mobile telephones are connected to a vehicular information terminal. Thus, even when there is a plurality of passengers carrying mobile telephones, each of the passengers can call a desired person or company through, for example, the hands-free function without selecting that one of the mobile telephones which is actually to be used, only by selecting the person or company to be called (the telephone number).
However, if the telephone directory is stored in the vehicular information terminal, a family member, a friend, or someone else (hereinafter referred to simply as another person) can browse the telephone directory after getting into the vehicle. Thus, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-354268 (JP-A-2005-354268), describes a vehicular information terminal that generates a link key based on the mobile telephone ID and an ID number of the vehicular information terminal and stores therein telephone directory data in association with the link key. Thus, even if another person that has entered the vehicle has a mobile telephone, that person is prevented from browsing the telephone directory data if the generated link key is different. It is therefore possible to prevent the other person from browsing the telephone directory data.
By the same token, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 3185734 (JP-B2-3185734), there is proposed a vehicular information terminal that locks telephone directory data when a passenger carrying a mobile telephone with an unregistered mobile telephone ID gets into a vehicle, from the standpoint of restraining someone else from browsing the telephone directory data.
However, if browsing of the telephone directory data is simply forbidden, as in the case of the vehicular information terminal s described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-354268 (JP-A-2005-354268) or Japanese Patent Publication No. 3185734 (JP-B2-3185734), someone else may browse the telephone directory data by doing something dishonest.
Incidentally, each passenger may change his or her mobile telephone hand set for a new one (change the model of his or her mobile telephone). However, in the vehicular information terminal s described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-354268 (JP-A-2005-354268) and Japanese Patent Publication No. 3185734 (JP-B2-3185734), the mobile telephone ID of the new handset differs from the previous handset, and it may become impossible to access the registered telephone directory data. Further, in this case, if the telephone directory data remain stored in the vehicular information terminal, the memory of the vehicular information terminal is occupied.